Toyota Screwed Up The Tundra So Bad It’s Replacing 100,000 Engines

Toyota built its reputation over several decades as a manufacturer known for its reliable powertrains. Remember, this is the maker of the notoriously hard-to-kill Hilux and Land Cruiser. Now owners and prospective buyers might think a little differently though after Toyota decided on July 25 to replace 102,092 engines in Tundras and Lexus LX SUVs from 2022 and 2023. Here’s how these vehicles, marketed as rugged and ready for action, ended up needing new hearts.

Toyota issued a recall back in early June. At the time, the company simply said that the aforementioned trucks and SUVs might have debris inside of their V35A engines. The V35A engine, by the way, is the new 3.4-liter twin-turbo V6 that replaced the rugged 5.7-liter V8. The recall included 98,568 Tundras and 3,524 Lexus LX600s.

Toyota says the debris was likely introduced into the engines during the machining process, and that the company altered its machining process to one that “better clear[s] machining debris.” Toyota doesn’t state how many vehicles in the recall population actually suffered from significant loose debris, so it’s hard to know the rate of failure at this time.

Notably, other Toyota products like the Sequoia Hybrid, Lexus LS, and GX550 also use a version of the V35A engine but are absent from the recall. Toyota describes why below::

This recall covers vehicles equipped with V35A engines of a particular configuration that were manufactured during a certain period at particular engine plants. V35A engines of this configuration, manufactured after this production period, were manufactured with new or improved processes that better clear machining debris. Other Toyota or Lexus vehicles sold in the U.S. are not equipped with this engine or have a different V35A engine configuration with different pressure on the main bearings. Some of these vehicles equipped with a different engine configuration have a Hybrid powertrain system. If engine failure occurs on a Hybrid vehicle, the vehicle continues to have some motive power for limited distances and the driver receives a continuous audible warning, warning lamps, and visual warning messages. Toyota is unable to estimate the percentage of the involved vehicles to actually contain the defect described in Section 5.

The problem popped up back in March of 2022, says Toyota in official documents filed with NHTSA. “In early March 2022, Toyota received a field report that indicated a vehicle equipped with a V35A engine stalled. Toyota recovered the involved parts and performed an investigation of the engine failure. Through this investigation, it was found that the crankshaft main bearings had seized,” it said.

A few months went by before a single dealer reported two more similar instances in July. The manufacturer recovered the engines in question and found that they both had crankshaft and main bearing damage. Concerned that machining debris had entered the engine during production, Toyota says it changed its process right away. But that was too late for many vehicles. In its NHTSA filing, Toyota describes what owners might experience. “In the involved vehicles, this [issue] can lead to potential engine knocking, engine rough running, engine no start and/or a loss of motive power.”

By September of 2023, Toyota says it “observed an increase in dealer and Toyota field reports related to engine failure involving debris.” In October of 2023, one report popped on Reddit where the owner claimed the following.

Bought my 2023 Tundra at Beaman Toyota (Nashville) in February. Put 10k miles on it literally on the way to dealership to check out a knocking noise.

Left truck for a diagnostic check, received a call from the service manager and he said the whole engine needs to be replaced!

New short blocks, peds, every component that oil touches. Some type of internal engine failure happening on these engines. It has happened on a few other trucks. Third one that they have had at my local dealership.

I’m pretty upset because this is my dream truck and all I have been told is Toyota is the most reliable truck on the road. Anyone else having the same issue?

Boy oh boy were other people having the same or similar issues. On NHTSA’s website owners and service techs can report problems; there are several public records related to engine issues with the Tundra, and several indicate that owners heard a tapping noise or that the engine just stalled out altogether. Here are just a few complaints.

“My engine had something internally brake on Easter Sunday 2024. When I first took it to the dealer on Monday, it took a day or two and they found nothing wrong. I picked it up and noticed a loud tapping noise coming from the engine, I took it back to the dealer, the technician opened up the motor and found metal shavings all over the inside of the motor.”

“The contact stated while driving approximately 70 MPH, the instrument panel fluttered, and the vehicle stalled. The vehicle was not able to be restarted. The vehicle was towed to a dealer where it was diagnosed that the engine needed to be replaced.”

I was traveling south on [XXX] in Sarasota, FL, around 70-75 miles per hour and the engine shut down with warning. I coasted to a stop and was able to pull in the left emergency lane out of traffic. This could have been a tragic situation because cars were traveling 70 plus mph in that area. I tried to restart the car but all I got was a clicking sound from the starter, I also smelled a faint burning smell form the engine compartment. I had to have the vehicle towed into a local Toyota dealership and was advised several days later that the engine would have to be replaced as metal shavings were found inside of it.

By May 23, 2024, Toyota decided to conduct the recall. It now has over 800 reports of engine failure that could be linked to this debris situation.

To figure out what was wrong, Toyota gathered good engines from the field along with swatches of debris samples from specific production intervals. “These samples represented the size and amount of debris present for production periods, or lots, of engines,” says Toyota. It even went as far as to send bearings and other parts back to Japan so that the engine design team could study them.

Ultimately all of this data and the findings of this investigation led to the recall. Toyota does not indicate what other potential remedies it considered instead of a complete engine replacement, but clearly it felt that this was the more economically efficient route. That says a lot.

Automakers don’t replace entire engines as part of a recall very often. They especially don’t do it across 100,000+ vehicles with any sort of regularity. In the vast majority of cases, the manufacturer simply fixes the part or parts associated with the potential risk or defect.

Still, it’s a statement that it’ll do what it must to make things right after a production defect. Maybe the E60 M5 and E90 M3 wouldn’t have the reputation it does had BMW recalled them for for consistent bearing failure, too.